


The Islands

by HunterPeverell



Series: The Final Winter [4]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Canon-Typical Violence, Comic Book Science, Endgame Retcon, Eventual Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Mostly Canon Compliant, Past Character Death, Past Pandemic, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Canon Fix-It, Sentient Infinity Stones (Marvel), Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Virus
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-16 02:02:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 15,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29324403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HunterPeverell/pseuds/HunterPeverell
Summary: All Steve had wanted to do was save Natasha. He hadn't expected to find himself in the far future with the last straggling remains of humanity and an older Bucky Barnes. Between trying to survive in the hell-scape Apocalypse the Earth had become and trying to get to know his world-weary best friend all over again, the last thing Steve wants is to make a trek across the country to New York.But, well, when an Infinity Stone promises you salvation, perhaps "no" isn't the smartest choice.You do not need to read the rest of the series, though it may help.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: The Final Winter [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2032501
Comments: 52
Kudos: 13





	1. The Start of All Things

**Author's Note:**

> Alright, folks, hello! This story takes place in the same universes as The Center, but you don’t need to read the other story to understand this one. Think of this as … an alternate sequel? What could have happened if the major events in the previous story hadn’t happened? All you need to know is that the canon ending for Endgame happened. The Center deals with some time travel from 2012 and also explores what I, personally, think happened to Steve in that ending. 
> 
> However, The Island ignores all the time travel shenanigans from the other story. Instead, it postulates that, since Addison never had any reason to go to Stark’s cabin out by the lake, she never picked up the real Steve’s trail. What this story deals with is, well, a possibility. I’m not going to lie, this does deal with the Apocalypse, so it can and will get dark and deal with, you know, the near-extinction of the human race, but I do promise this has a happy ending.
> 
> Please note the tags. This story deals with a virus that’s basically the zombie plague and it spread across the entire world. It killed a lot of characters before this story takes place. There’s no graphic death, only referenced, but please be aware that the only characters who have survived into this time are Bucky, Steve, Bruce, and several original characters. Everyone else is dead and has been for some time. If I missed tagging anything, please let me know!
> 
> Also, I’d like to say I did way more research into the USA’s farmland and food production than I had actually wanted to, so, yeah. Fruits (heh) of my labor right here.

When Steve woke up, he had no idea where he was.

He seemed to be laying on a very thin layer of water, but when he cautiously sat up, his hair and back weren’t wet. The water didn’t ripple with his movements, just lay there underneath him like some sort of mirror. Around him was a deep blackness tempered by an orangey glow where, Steve assumed, the water met the horizon.

He climbed to his feet slowly, alert for any sound, any movement, but there was nothing. He was alone.

Steve looked down. He was dressed in the same clothes as he’d left in—namely, bland kakis and a simple t-shirt, both of which could blend in with most of the places he’d traveled to recently. Strapped across his back was the round modified suitcase where he’d stored his shield, money forged for different eras, and various fake IDs. Around his wrist was the watch that allowed him to time travel, and Steve panicked for a moment, reaching for his belt pouch. He felt his stomach drop as he found no sign of the last vial of Pym Particles Bruce had given him before he’d left.

He opened his suitcase and withdrew his shield, slipping it onto his arm so it was ready to block or attack, whichever he needed, at a moment’s notice.

If he’d lost the Particles, then he was stranded wherever and whenever this place was, and there was no one to come and get him.

Perhaps he’d dropped it somewhere when he’d landed. Steve clung to that hope and began making slow circles, searching the weirdly still water, his ears pricked for anything out of the ordinary.

He didn’t see the vial’s familiar orange glow no matter how many slow circles he made, and it wasn’t like the water was _deep._ It didn’t even rise about the midsole of his shoes.

“What _are_ you doing, Steve?” asked a familiar, husky voice.

Steve’s head whipped up and he held his shield defensively as he took in the sight of Natasha standing in front of him.

“Nat?” he asked.

It _was_ Natasha Romanoff, but there was something … off. She was slightly transparent and surrounded by an orangey glow, but otherwise, she looked exactly as she had before she and Clint went off to Vorimir.

She gave him a small, bittersweet smile. “Hey.”

Steve looked around and lowered his shield just slightly. “Is this—am I dead?”

“No, Steve.”

“But … You’re here,” he pointed out.

“Because we have something to tell you,” she said.

Steve’s brow furrowed. “We?”

“She isn’t here yet,” said Natasha calmly. “You’re not dead and are, in fact about to wake up. And Steve…” Her eyes softened. “You’ve had another time skip, I’m afraid.”

Steve’s stomach lurched unpleasantly. “No.” He took a step back and shook his head. “No, no, no. I just need to find the vial, then I can get back to the platform. I was only supposed to be gone _five seconds.”_

“It’s been longer than that,” said Natasha.

_“How long?”_

“It’s been a hundred and sixteen years,” Natasha said.

“No.” Steve fell to his knees and felt all the blood drain out of his face. _“No.”_

“I’m sorry, Steve,” she said quietly. “I really am.”

“How?” he croaked. “How’d I miss…”

Natasha knelt in front of him. “When you tried to barter for my life with the Soul Stone, it took you instead. It’s kept you all these years.”

Steve squeezed his eyes shut. “God, _no.”_

“I wish there was something I could do,” Natasha murmured. “But we don’t have the time. Addison will be sending you back soon enough.”

“Who?” Steve asked. “And … what’s even the point?”

Natasha pressed her lips together. “Our world isn’t what you remember.”

Steve let out a bitter laugh. “I’ve done this rodeo before, Nat.”

“Not like this,” Natasha said. “There won’t be any adjusting to new phones or whatever. The world is _dying,_ Steve.”

Steve closed his eyes. “Everyone I know will be dead again,” he whispered.

“Not quite,” Natasha said.

His eyes snapped open. “What?”

“Time isn’t set in stone,” Natasha said. “I need you to understand that. The Soul Stone made a mistake, taking you. It’s taken it far too long to realize that. It needs you to reverse its mistake, if it wants to survive the Final Winter.”

The orange glow on the horizon flashed brighter, almost angrily, and Natasha flickered in and out of existence for a moment.

“I’m fine,” she said at Steve’s worried gaze. “I said too much.”

“Who do I know who’s still alive?” Steve asked.

“You need to go to New York,” Natasha said. “To the old Compound. Have Bucky and Piper take you.”

“Bucky?” Steve said, a droplet of hope swirling in his heart. “He’s still alive?”

“You’ll find him at the Stark Industries manufacturing plant in Los Vegas in one day’s time from where you land,” Natasha said. “I don’t know exactly where you’ll land, but it won’t be too far away … hopefully.”

His brain kept thrumming _Bucky, Bucky, Bucky,_ over and over again, but he forced himself to focus on Natasha’s words. “Got it,” he said.

“And if you see a Plagued,” she said grimly. _“Run.”_

“A what?”

“We failed, Steve,” said Natasha. “You, me, Sam, Wanda, Bruce …. We all failed. I’m sorry you have to be the one to clean it up.”

“I don’t understand,” Steve said.

“You will,” she promised as a brilliant orange orb sparked into sight next to her. Steve tensed, but Natasha didn’t even react.

“Addison,” she said, and the orb pulsed softly. “We’re ready.”

“Wait!” said Steve. “I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be doing!”

“Find Bucky,” Natasha repeated. “Go to the old Avengers Compound. And if you need me, I’ll be there.”

“What does that even _mean?”_ he asked, bewildered, but the orb engulfed him. The dark place with Natasha’s sadly smiling face vanished before his very eyes, and Natasha’s, “Good luck, Steve,” lingered in his ears long after he blacked out.


	2. Wasteland, Baby!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My inbox has recently had an influx of comments and you guys. Holy frick, you're making my week, thank you all so much <3

The next time Steve woke up, it was under a familiar burning yellow sun. The sky above him was blue and dotted with fluffy white clouds. Steve got stiffly to his feet, wincing at the ache in his back and head. However he’d gotten here, it seemed as though he’d just been … dropped. On his back. In the middle of nowhere.

Well, that wasn’t _technically_ true, as Steve seem to have landed on the outskirts of a small town. On top of a nearby scrub-brushed hill there was a massive concrete block with a flagless flagpole up top and the words SEARCHLIGHT, NEVADA painted on the side. The paint was dark with dust and wear.

Steve stood at the edge of a road that was so cracked and overgrown with weeds, he was loathe to actually label it a road. On to other side of the pavement was one of those ubiquitous town signs welcoming people in.

 _Welcome to Searchlight, NV!_ said this particular sign. The words were so faded and scratched it really read something like, _el-me o S-rch-ght, N-!_

Steve looked dubiously around at all the empty buildings, long abandoned and well-rusted cars, and the utter lack of people, and didn’t feel particularly welcomed.

The place looked like someone had taken several tons of sand and upturned it over everything. The houses were all dark and silent, windows long since broken and yards utterly overgrown with weeds. There was evidence of animal life everywhere, from the scratches at door frames to the random piles of poop littering the streets and sidewalks. Steve saw a bike so rusted through it was essentially a pile of red-orange metal.

Telephone wires were broken, but Steve couldn’t hear any electricity running through them, and so assumed whatever plant fueled them was offline, or at least had cut off supplies to this particular ghost town.

He tapped his watch and brought up the map of the galaxy Tony had taken off the racoon, Rocket, and began zooming in. Internally, he thanked Tony for giving him an offline comprehensive map as he finally located Nevada and eyeballed the distance between Searchlight and Las Vegas, which was almost directly to his north.

It was fifty-six miles.

 _In one day’s time from where you land,_ Natasha had told him.

Well, no time to waste, then.

Steve had alternated between walking and jogging for the last seventeen hours. Now he strolled along, Las Vegas a smudge against the horizon, and wondered, idly, what had happened to everyone. He hadn’t seen a single person in the last day or so he’d been traveling (except maybe when Steve had stopped to catch a few fitful hours of sleep about twenty miles back. He’d thought he’d seen several somethings moving off in the distance, but the dark figures moved faster and in ways no normal human possibly could. Something primal in the back of Steve’s mind told him _danger! be still! be silent!._ This was normally a voice that Steve blithely ignored, but with the promise of Bucky and an explanation soon in his future as well as the strange yet undeniable terror at those far-off blobs, Steve kept still and silent), nor even a single sign of civilization that wasn’t overgrown with weeds. There hadn’t been a single airplane in the sky nor a car on the road.

Which was strange, because he had mostly traveled along actual _highways._ There were official signs and everything, from chipped and broken green ones declaring the exits to the blue signs pointing out what lodgings, foodstops, and gas stations were at each exit. And yet, the road was so poorly maintained that Steve couldn’t imagine anyone actually driving on it.

And this was close to _Las Vegas._ Steve had only been there once, back in 2013 on a mission with SHIELD, but he remembered the place to be lively despite the sweltering heat.

 _A lot can change in one-hundred and sixteen years,_ he told himself, only, he didn’t really believe it. He was used to the world changing around him—his last nearly-hundred-year time skip had been utterly bizarre, but he liked to think he’d adapted fairly well. He’d been expecting something like that, regardless of what Nat told him, where he would have to relearn phones and computers and deal with whatever intrusive surveillance was the new norm.

Instead he got lots of empty nothing, which put him in mind of a few movies and TV shows he’d watched with Sam and Nat, back in the day. _Mad Max, The Walking Dead, 28 Days Later, The Last Man on Earth._

This felt like a movie set. Not real life.

A bad feeling had developed in Steve’s gut for the last seventeen hours as he neared Las Vegas, one that told him exactly why Nat had thought they’d failed. Steve kept his shield up, wished desperately for a gun, but made do with a nicely-sized rock he could lob at an oncoming assailant.

When he finally made it to the outskirts of Las Vegas, he was sweating and really wishing he could believe Starbucks was still around. If anything could survive an apocalypse, it would be Starbucks, right?

Steve climbed up onto a highway ramp, hoping to get up high enough that he could spy whatever obnoxious tower Stark Industries had in the city. There were still no people. There were still no signs of life.

 _Please be here, Buck,_ Steve thought desperately, deeply unnerved. _Please don’t actually be dead._

If Buck were still alive … Then, hell, he would be around two-hundred and twenty-six years old. He’d been twenty-six when he’d shipped off to Europe, when his unit had been captured in Azzano.

 _Two hundred years, pal,_ Steve thought wearily. _And where are we now?_

His thoughts were abruptly derailed as he saw something move out of the corner of his eye.

Steve’s head whipped around, but there was nothing there.

Slowly, afraid it would move again and he’d miss it, Steve kept pushing forwards, trying to spot the Stark Industries logo. He carefully made his way along the cracked overpass, staring at the abandoned remains of cars as he passed. Whatever had cleared out Las Vegas has sure done so in a hurry.

 _Zombies,_ his brain suggested.

But zombies weren’t real.

Were they?

 _You’ve fought aliens,_ his brain retorted. _You’re allies with a talking racoon._

...All of which were very good points, and Steve really, really hoped there were no zombies. That would ruin his day.

He rounded a bend in the highway and spied the familiar logo against the side of a building. Steve grinned and picked up his pace, wanting, with a fierce desperation, to see Bucky, to hold him, to reassure him that Steve was _real,_ that he was back.

Then something crawled up over the side of the highway.

 _ZOMBIE!_ his brain shrieked, but that wasn’t quite right. It didn’t look much like a rotten corpse. Instead, it looked more like … a chitauri.

Its skin was pitch black, the deepest of tar, and mottled with greenish greys and sickly blues. Its limbs were long and tipped with clawed digits. Its face was some sort of bastardization between an ape and the aliens Steve had fought and its massive teeth glistened, its bright purple eyes that glared at him from underneath chitin armor. Its flesh spread across its muscular chest, no fat at all on its body, and it looked … _hungry._

“What the hell,” Steve breathed before coming to his senses and flinging his rock at it.

It dodged, faster than Steve had thought possible, and lunged for him. Steve brought up his shield and dodged its clawed hands, smacking at it with the only weapon he had left on him.

He backed up, the creature backed up, and they eyed one another warily. The thing chittered softly to itself and Steve held his ground behind his raised shield. He didn’t want to fling his shield at the creature just yet, loathe to part with his only real weapon.

But Steve had his back to the Stark building, and so he began to edge warily away from the thing.

Then the others came.

The goddamned _chittering._ It hadn’t been making noises— _it had been calling for help._ Steve watched in horror as twenty more crawled up onto the overpass.

“Dear Lord,” said Steve in horror as he stared at them, wide-eyed.

Steve, on a matter of principle, did not run away from a fight. But with Bucky potentially so close by and coming face to face with what he was pretty sure had brought about the apocalypse, Steve turned and bolted for Stark Industries.

 _I just gotta make it,_ he thought wildly as the creatures gave the chase. _I just gotta get there._

But they were fast, and there were more of them than of him, and Steve was too boxed in to dodge when one of the chitauri-things hurled itself at him and slashed his calf.

Steve cried out and stumbled, which was all the creatures needed to surrounded him, pile on top of him, and pin him down so thoroughly even Steve’s enhanced strength could budge them. Steve stared wide-eyed and one which opened its mouth impossibly wide, ready to eat him alive.

But just before the hideous creature’s jaws could close around Steve’s head, a blast of blue energy knocked it and its fellows back. Steve blinked rapidly and saw that, impossibly, there was someone standing between him and the creatures.

Someone with a metal arm.

 _“Bucky,”_ he breathed.


	3. Things That Have Passed

Bucky was a blur of motion and blue energy, which crackled from the honest-to-God _short sword_ he held in one hand. He vaulted through the air, slashing at the creatures with the sword and shooting others with a laser pistol of some sort.

Steve watched, opened-mouthed, as Bucky viciously sliced and shot, driving the creatures back with a terrifying ruthlessness, his movements fluid and so fast even Steve had trouble following them. Apparently, over the last hundred years, Bucky had gotten _even better at fighting._ Steve remembered the Causeway and boggled. He’d thought Bucky as the Winter Soldier was on the best fighters he’d ever come across—but the Winter Soldier had _nothing_ on Bucky now.

Steve winced and tried to get to his feet, but the cut was deep, and he’d lost a lot of blood. The shooting, throbbing pain was beginning to register in his brain now that the shock and adrenaline were wearing away. Still, he needed to help Bucky, needed to do something—

With a cry, someone else joined the fray, this one wielding two fighting axes in each hand. They fought like Bucky; fast, precise, and utterly deadly.

Between the two of them, they beat back the creatures, slashing and hacking until the last three chitauri-things gave up and ran off, leaving nearly two dozen of their fallen comrades behind.

Bucky turned to Steve and stalked towards him, like he was preparing to chew Steve out, only to stop dead once he got a good look at Steve, staring.

Or, at least, Steve assumed Bucky was staring. He wore goggles over his eyes and what looked like a cloth gas mask over his lower face. Thick canvas pants encased his legs while a leather jacket, mud-splattered boots, and gloves—all well worn to the point of needing replacing and covered with patches and stitched-up spots—completed what Steve was mentally dubbing his Apocalypse Outfit. His hair, which was liberally sprinkled with grey, was shaved fairly close to his head.

Then Bucky ripped off the goggles and the mask. He was indeed staring at Steve, eyes wide. _“Steve?”_

Steve managed a smile. “Hey, Buck. Been a long time.”

Bucky shook his head as if dislodging flies. “Uh, _no._ What the _hell?”_

“It’s kind of a long story,” Steve said.

Bucky snorted. “What, got forced away from the forties? Or, what, fifties? Peggy must be worried.”

Steve frowned. “Peggy? What’s she got to do with anything?”

“Oh, shit, has that not happened to you yet,” Bucky said dryly before finally moving forward. “Lemme patch you up, Rogers.”

Now that he was closer, Steve’s breath caught as he finally catalogued all the differences between the Bucky in front of him and the one he’d left behind what was, to him, three days before.

Bucky looked, well, older. Steve knew Bucky had to be around two-hundred and twenty-six (depending on what time of the year it was), but, well … Bucky didn’t look like some old, silver-haired man. There were more wrinkles, sure, but not as much as Steve had been expecting. In truth, Bucky looked like he was a fifty or sixty year old man, not well over two hundred.

“You look good, Buck,” he said as Bucky knelt down in front of him and reached into a pouch he’d looped through his belt. He withdrew first aid supplies—gauzes, antiseptics, the whole nine yards.

“If you say so,” said Bucky. “Feel old.”

“Well, you’re over two-hundred,” said Steve.

Bucky’s eyes flashed up to meet his. “Two-hundred and twenty six. How’d you know?”

“Nat told me,” said Steve as the other person—a woman—came up to them, her axes dripping with black goo. She was dressed almost exactly like Bucky, even down to the shorn hair, save for metal gauntlets encasing both of her hands. She twisted her hands and the two axes vanished in a flash of blue light. Then she shoved her own goggles and mask out of the way, and Steve was greeted with the face of a dark-skinned woman in her late forties or early fifties. Her dark eyes were intense as she scanned Steve up and down before snapping over to Bucky, who continued patching Steve up.

“Is that Rogers?” she demanded.

“Apparently,” said Bucky. “Though we haven’t exactly established that.”

“Ask me anything,” Steve said earnestly. “Anything, Buck.”

“When is he from?” the woman asked.

Steve hesitated. “That’s … complicated.”

“Lemme guess,” Bucky said. “Returning the Stones.”

“Yeah,” said Steve quietly.

“So, before Carter,” the woman said.

“Why do you two keep bringing up Peggy?” Steve asked, frowning. “What’s she got to do with any of this?”

Bucky and the woman exchanged a glance as Bucky finished wrapping up Steve’s calf.

“Spur of the moment decision?” the woman suggested.

“That does sound like him,” Bucky sighed, patting Steve’s knee. “Let’s get you on your feet, Rogers.”

“Wait, what sounds like me?” Steve said, not moving to get to his feet and instead choosing to glare up at Bucky.

To his surprise, Bucky sighed and rubbed his hand down his face. “Fuck, you’re young.”

Yeah. Suddenly Steve’s hundred and six years (thirty-seven years) didn’t seem like very much. He slowly stood up, trying to keep as much weight off his leg as he could. The woman vanished over the side of the overpass, leaping over it like there wasn’t a massive drop on the other side.

“She gonna be okay?” he panted as his leg screamed in protest.

Bucky glanced over to where she’d vanished. “What? The drop? She’s got serum. She’s fine.”

“Oh,” said Steve. “What’s all this about Peggy, Bucky?”

Bucky met his gaze for a second before his eyes scanned the world beyond Steve.

“Tell you what,” Bucky said at last. “We’ll trade stories on the flight outta here, alright?”

“Is this the apocalypse?” Steve asked quietly. “Is … How many humans are left?”

Bucky’s eyes darted back to his, and they looked utterly bleak.

“Initially, or now?” he asked.

“Both, either,” said Steve.

They were interrupted by the woman’s return as she came back over the overpass’s wall. In one hand, she held an old, battered crutch. Steve frowned and glanced over her shoulder, seeing a clinic on the ground level, all its windows smashed in.

“Here,” she said, shoving it out towards Steve. “Also, I’d like to say that I really don’t trust this and I think we should consider ditching him.”

“Denied,” said Bucky, positioning himself on Steve’s other side, likely to catch Steve if he ended up pitching forward face-first.

“What’d I do to her?” he muttered to Bucky.

“It’s the apocalypse,” said Bucky dryly. “Trust ain’t easy.”

“We don’t even know if he is the real Steve Rogers,” the woman protested as Steve frowned at Bucky. Somehow, he got the feeling there was a bit more to it. Bucky didn’t meet his eyes and instead said, “Leave it, alright? He’ll prove it or he won’t.”

Steve flinched back as both Bucky and the woman leveled him with stares, and he said, “Uh, I’m not really sure how to prove it to you.”

“I do,” said a new voice.

All three of them whipped their heads around to see Natasha standing there. Except … not exactly. She was Natasha made of a transparent orange glow. Still she was smiling gently at them. She looked exactly like she had, back in that strange place he’d woken up in.

_“Natashka?”_ Bucky blurted out.

“Hey, Barnes,” she said, lips quirking up. “Been a while, huh? Piper, it’s nice to meet you. In person.”

_Piper._ He thought Natasha had mentioned her name, but Steve had been hit by Bucky’s name and had kind of ignored everything else. Piper, got it.

“You’re _dead,”_ said Piper, absolutely flabbergasted. “You died ages ago.”

Natasha nodded once. “I know.”

“What the hell is happening?” Bucky demanded quietly.

Natasha let out a breath. “Kamarát.”

Both Bucky and Piper tensed even further. “How do you know that word?” Piper demanded.

“Because Addison told me,” Natasha said. He heard Bucky suck in a breath. “She said to tell you that you and her, you’ll always find each other no matter what.”

Piper squeezed her eyes closed and croaked out, “Now that’s just cheating.”

“There’s a lot going on I don’t have time to tell you about,” Natasha said quietly. “But I can tell you that this is the real Steve Rogers. I swear to you both, this is him, and the old man was the fake. Barnes—Get him to the Compound.”

“The Compou—” Bucky began to say, but Natasha was already fading away.

“Wait a sec,” Piper started, just as Bucky said, “Natashka—!” and Steve began to demand, _“What_ fake?”

But Nat had vanished without a trace, leaving nothing but an empty, cracked highway behind her.

“That was creepy,” said Piper, staring at the now-empty spot. “That was…”

“Let’s get out of here,” said Bucky, running a hand through his hair. “And quick.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Piper muttered.

Steve hesitated, eyes darting between the two. Bucky caught it and said, “Of course you’re coming with. C’mon.”

And so Steve, with Bucky at his side in case he fell, followed Piper at a limping, yet determined pace as she led them deeper into Las Vegas, making for the Stark Industries building.


	4. The Fight Fell To

Outside of the building was a white vehicle, the likes of which Steve had never seen before. The vehicle might have originally been white, but was so streaked with mud, blood, and dust that the original color was quite lost. There were two parts to the vehicle; the front, where it looked like two motorcycles, sans wheels, had been melded together, and a large back that looked most like a truck bed with a metal railing going all around the edges. There was already some sort of machine in the truck bed part taking up three-quarters of the room and strapped thoroughly down. Steve had no idea what the machine was, but it looked rather like a satellite.

It hovered several yards in the air, but lowered itself to the ground when Piper raised her hand to it, her gauntlets lighting up with blue energy Steve told himself wasn’t at all familiar.

“Hop in,” Bucky said as he climbed in on the left side, Piper on the right.

Gingerly, Steve hauled himself over the edge and just kinda fell over onto the other side, wincing as his leg knocked into the satellite-thing.

“Good back there?” Bucky called.

“Yeah,” Steve said.

“Bucky,” Piper warned, and Steve twisted his head up to get a look over the edge, just in time to see more of those chitauri-things coming at them from down the street.

“And take off,” said Bucky calmly. Both he and Piper and put their goggles and masks back up, and Steve had just a second to wonder why before the vehicle rose in the air and shot forward, gaining altitude steadily.

“Take control,” he heard Bucky shout, and then Bucky was leaning out into open hair, his left hand clamped firmly around the metal railing of the truck bed, staring out behind them.

“Bucky?” Steve shouted, but Bucky paid him no mind, instead staring intently behind them.

Steve followed his gaze, though the whipping wind (steadily growing colder as they continued to go higher) stung his eyes. No wonder both Bucky and Piper wore goggles. Nevertheless, he stared out, determined, and saw that a few of the dark chitauri-things were flying after them. They had _wings._

But they weren’t as fast as the vehicle and couldn’t seem to go as high, and so eventually they fell behind and out of sight. Bucky nodded to himself and pulled himself back in, hitting a button. A blue dome encased the vehicle, blocking the wind and most of the chill. Steve’s ears rang with the sudden quiet, and he became very aware of how cold he was.

“What the hell were those?” Steve croaked.

“The Plagued,” said Bucky. He glanced over his shoulder. “They’re what humans have become.”

Something cold settled in Steve’s breast as he sat up straighter, heart racing. “Those were _humans?”_

“No,” said Bucky. “At least, not anymore. Too much alien DNA.”

“What happened?” Steve asked, horrified.

Bucky sighed and swung his legs over the divide between the front and the truck bed, leaving Piper to fly them on. He settled across from Steve, legs folded criss-cross in front of him.

“In 2027,” he began. “There was this … I dunno, cult leader or whatever. He went by the name Shiv, but his real name was Robert Braxford. He preyed on the people grieving and desperate from the Snap, told them he could bring their loved ones back if they joined his cult. He wanted to make all of humanity his slaves for himself and his followers. He enlisted a scientist, Kathrine White, to make humanity a hive mind enslaved to him. She chose to experiment with—”

“Chitauri DNA,” said Steve. The cold feeling was spreading to the rest of his torso, and he couldn’t help but shiver.

He could tell Bucky noticed from the way his eyes darted over Steve’s body. Wordlessly, Bucky reached towards the wall of the truck bed and slid a panel back, grabbing out a wool blanket and giving it to Steve.

“Thanks, Buck,” said Steve.

“No problem,” Bucky murmured before continuing, “It was contagious as hell—Braxford wanted to infect the whole world—only, White’s antidote didn’t work. Bradford, White, the whole cult, they were the first ones to turn into Plagued. Sam—he was Captain America at the time—he got called in to help contain it. He brought all the Avengers along: me, Wanda, Piper, and Addison.”

“Piper was an Avenger?” Steve asked, surprised.

“One of the worst,” Piper muttered.

“We both were,” said Bucky and shrugged when Steve’s eyes flickered over to him. “We are. We failed to stop the virus, we failed to save humanity, and when all was said and done, we had no way of turning everyone back, no way of saving the world. Sam, Wanda, and Addison all turned within a day. By then, the virus was out of control, and within a month, it had consumed the world.

“A month,” said Steve hoarsely. He scrubbed a hand over his eyes. “And the survivors…?”

“Initially, after the whole event had died down and anyone who didn’t have some version of the serum had died off, there were thirty-two humans.” Bucky paused, then added, “World-wide.”

“Thirty-two,” Steve breathed.

Bucky nodded. “Twenty-seven of those were me, Piper, and Bruce, and everyone Bruce managed to save. He fine-tuned his serum a bit. No more Hulks, and his serum is more, uh, volatile than ours,” he gestured to himself and Steve, “but it worked. It saved some people. Now, a hundred and sixteen years later, the last count came in, and the global population has reached forty-six.”

“Forty-six,” said Steve faintly.

“Bruce has done his best to reverse the virus, but he’s so far been unsuccessful,” said Bucky. “Take human ingenuity and alien DNA, and the Plagued can evolve to evade whatever Bruce throws at them, and since there’s a hive mind, they can share the evolution with every other Plagued, world wide.”

Steve stared at him, wide-eyed, horrified.

“So, what about you?” Bucky asked, folding his arms. “What happened to you?”

Steve shook his head. “No, wait, tell me more about the Plagued.”

“Tell you in a bit,” Bucky said evenly. His grey-blue eyes bore into Steve’s, and Bucky’s expression was one Steve didn’t think he’d ever seen on Bucky’s face before, not in that mixture. There was anger, confusion, resentment, and, just around the edges, hope.

“What happened to you, Rogers?” Bucky said, quite, low, soft. The tone made the hairs on the back of Steve’s next prickle. “Where have you been for the last hundred years, why are you back now, and _what’s going on?”_


	5. The End of the World

Bucky was quiet as Steve told him about the attempt to rescue Natasha, his attempts to bargain with the Soul Stone only to wake up in the dark, wetless pool. He explained about how Natasha appeared, ghostly and ethereal. He relayed to Bucky more or less what Natasha told him, and the task she’d assigned him—find Bucky, get to New York.

When he was finished speaking, there was a long moment of silence in which Bucky stared thoughtfully at the back of Piper’s head.

Below them, the land spread out in patches of green and yellow. Steve could see the occasional city or town, and it pained him to know that they were all empty. Far down below, he occasionally caught glimpses of great herds of Plagued, all moving as one. There were hundreds, maybe thousands, all moving across the land, and the sight of it made Steve shudder.

 _Those were people, once,_ he thought and felt sick.

Bucky still hadn’t replied to him, so Steve prompted, “Buck?”

“Addison always thought something strange had happened to you,” mused Bucky. “She always thought there was something off about the old man.”

“Old man?” Steve asked, frowning. _Fake one,_ Nat had said.

Bucky still wasn’t looking at him, and by now Piper’s shoulders had scrunched up to her ears.

“Buck,” Steve said as Piper burst out saying, _“Fine!_ Okay, whatever, she was _right!”_

She slapped her hand on a panel, and the vehicle picked up speed.

Steve fell over a little bit at the acceleration, but Bucky remained balanced and calm as he refocused on Steve and held his eyes for a second.

“Bucky?” Steve asked.

Bucky studied Steve for a long moment, then sighed.

“This,” he warned Steve, “is going to be a lot.”

Then he launched into some weird story where Steve had … apparently gone back to Peggy, stolen her away from her life and the family she would have had, lived with the knowledge that he’d abandoned all of his friends in the future and was maybe even complicit in the torture of Bucky and the rise of HYDRA before turning back up as an old man to give Sam the shield and then noping off to a retirement home before dying in 2026 of heart failure.

It took nearly half an hour for Bucky to explain everything to Steve because Steve honestly had no idea how to process any of that.

“So,” Bucky concluded. “That’s … that’s the Old Man.”

Steve was silent for a moment, staring.

“...What,” he said.

“...What,” he said, staring.

“No, seriously, what,” he said.

He stared harder at Bucky. _“What the hell.”_

Bucky shrugged. “But apparently you’ve been hiding in the Soul Stone and the old man was a lie, so, whatever.”

Despite his attempts to sound nonchalant, Steve could hear the bewilderment, the hurt, and the pain, could see it in the lines around Bucky’s eyes. Steve had hurt Bucky. _Steve had hurt Bucky._

“No, _not_ whatever,” said Steve angrily. “You’ve spent the last _one hundred years_ thinking I _abandoned_ you. Bucky, I…”

“Steve, it’s done,” said Bucky tiredly. “If it weren’t for Natasha, I’d think _you_ were the lie and the old man the truth. Hell, I’m _still_ not sure I know this _isn’t_ a hallucination.”

“Bucky,” said Steve, suddenly crushed by guilt and pain. _“No.”_

Bucky lips twitched. “It doesn’t really matter.”

“It _does.”_ Steve reached forward and took Bucky’s hands in his. Though Bucky didn’t flinch, his eyes tracked Steve in a way that made him acutely aware that Bucky was talking with a man he’d once returned to war for and who had then abandoned him alone in an unfamiliar and unfriendly future. “Buck, I’m so _sorry.”_

Bucky managed a wan little smile. “Don’t worry about it, Rogers.”

Steve’s lips twisted. “You know I will.”

“Yeah.” This time, Bucky’s voice was more fond. “I know.”

Steve didn’t know what to say, how to bridge the gap that yawned between himself and Bucky. There were so many conflicting emotions bubbling in his chest, and all he wanted to do was wrap Bucky up in a hug and forget the last two centuries of shit they’d been through.

But there was time. There _had_ to be time. Shouldn’t the two of them be allowed some sort of break?

So instead he asked, “Tell me more about what’s happened. The Plagued. The other humans. You mentioned Bruce? It’s not just you and Piper making your way alone?”

Bucky snorted. “Oh, hell no. We’re in a settlement with about thirty-seven other people.”

“Thirty-seven,” Steve said quietly.

Bucky gave him a tight smile. It didn’t reach his eyes.

“Which state?” Steve asked, though last he knew they were in Nevada, and there was really only one other state to the west that didn’t require a boat.

“We’re stationed out in California now,” said Bucky, settling easily back against the truck bed. “Better growing seasons, lots of sunshine, whole nine yards.”

“Oh,” said Steve. “How long have you been out there?”

Bucky’s lips quirked. “‘Bout sixty years, at this point. We all kinda steadily moved across the continent as needs dictated before that. Tried out New York at first, but the East was so tightly-packed with Plagued we had to move on. Then we tried to find space in Iowa, but we got overrun there, too.”

“Why?” Steve asked, uneasily.

Bucky pursed his lips. “We’re not really sure. They don’t speak any language we can comprehend. Mouths and tongues are all alien. But Bruce thinks it’s ‘cause they’re doing what the virus was programmed to do—infect as many people as possible.”

“So what happened?” Steve asked.

“We kept moving,” said Bucky. “We tried to erect a shield, but they kept throwing themselves at it, prowling around 24/7. We were prisoners there, couldn’t escape. So we went all the way out, into the ocean. Found an island, settled there.”

“So, you’re on an island?” Steve asked.

“They swim,” said Bucky shortly.

Steve blinked. “An island even further out?”

“We tried that,” said Bucky. “Turns out, they can hold their breath for a really, really long time. And swim real good. And, yes,” he said, cutting Steve off. “We even had an underwater base. Lasted all of five years before the Plagued could swim deep.”

Steve stared. “Then where do you _live?”_

Bucky jerked his head, and Steve followed his gaze upwards.

Steve’s mouth fell open.

There were islands. _Flying islands._ Each one held aloft by what looked like repulsor engines each glowing blue. There was one large central one with a building about the size of a hundred-person school surrounded by smaller houses. The other islands—of which there were three plus one small fourth one that was maybe the size of a small house—were all connected to the central island by bridges.

Steve’s eyes swept over the smaller islands. One seemed to be covered in plants with a green house in the center. Another held pens filled with animals. Steve spied the fluffy wool of sheep and what looked like (maybe) a large chicken coop, but he was too far away to see what else. The third island held a large warehouse looking building with solar panels attached to the roof. On the sides of all the islands, large wind turbines turned in the wind, collecting power. The islands were covered in green growing things, which stood out strikingly against the ground below it, which was more of a murky brown-green color.

Piper angled them for the tiny fourth island, however, where there was a small shed big enough to house the vehicle they were in. Steve thought she muttered to herself, “That’s much too low,” but he wasn’t quite sure.

Bucky nudged Steve’s foot, a small, familiar smirk playing at his lips. “Welcome to one of the last settlements on Earth.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The islands have appeared! Whoo! Thanks to everyone reading and commenting--you're the best :D


	6. The Bonfire That Burns

“It’s usually around a mile above the ground,” explained Bucky as he and Steve got out of the vehicle, shield slung across his arm. Piper had parked them neatly on the fourth, smallest, island, inside a large barn-like shed. Both she and Bucky shucked their goggles and masks, leaving them on the seats. Steve, meanwhile, cautiously put weight on his leg, pleased to find it could hold his weight with the aid of the crutch, though the wound hurt like a sonovagun.

“‘Bout time you guys showed up,” someone said as they entered the shed. Steve’s gaze darted over to the person, taking them in.

She was a Latina woman, dark hair cut close to her head like Bucky and Piper’s. She wore a dusty tank top, soil-stained thick pants, and heavy duty boots. Steve could … well, he could definitely see that Bruce had a hand in making her serum. No, she wasn’t green, but she was much taller (she was as tall as Steve) and bulkier than almost any woman Steve had seen. She looked most like a professional body builder, just … bigger.

“Alicia,” Bucky said, patting the satellite-thing in the truck bed. “Got it.”

Standing next to Alicia, Piper looked tiny, and Bucky looked much, much smaller, though his shoulders were just a hair wider.

“Excellent,” Alicia said. “We need refueling.”

Piper rolled her eyes. “I’ll go help Bruce then.”

She moved past Alicia, whose gaze had landed on Steve, who felt the full weight of her gaze on him, which made him want to straighten all of his clothes and call her “ma’am.”

“Who’s this?” Alicia asked, studying him.

“Steve Rogers,” said Bucky.

Her eyes flicked over to him. “No shit?”

“No shit,” Bucky confirmed. “Tell you later. Help with this?”

Together, Bucky and Alicia picked up the satellite thing and moved it over to one side of the shed were a garage door separated them from the open air. Steve had moved to help, but Bucky had given him a whole Look. _Don’t even try it, Rogers,_ he knew Bucky was shouting mentally at him. _Don’t you even dare._

Steve itched to help, but he felt it was one thing to disregard Bucky’s instructions back when they had been best friends, on equal grounds, then it would be now, when Steve had unexpectedly shown up after a century-long absence to find an older, more experienced Bucky who clearly wasn’t sure what to think of Steve.

So Steve leaned against the shed’s wall and watched as Bucky and Alicia maneuvered the satellite-thing outside onto another vehicle like Bucky and Piper’s, though this one only had one motorcycle seat in the front and a long, wide flatbed behind it. Bucky and Alicia lashed it down with ropes again.

“Anything else?” Bucky asked once they were finished.

“Water,” said Alicia. “I’ve scheduled you a run in three days.”

Bucky nodded. “Good.”

Alicia nodded. “Go take care of the livestock. They’ve missed you.”

A real smile crossed Bucky’s face, and Steve remembered the goats Bucky used to look after in Wakanda, how his expression would go all soft and happy the way in rarely did around Steve and never did around other people.

“I’ll give Rogers a tour in the meantime, too,” said Bucky, winking over at Steve, whose heart ached at the familiar sight.

“Sure,” said Alicia before turning on her heels and climbing aboard the flatbed. It rose up in the air and off towards the largest island. Steve watched her go, bemused. In many ways, Alicia reminded Steve of Agent Hill.

“Grand tour, Rogers, let’s get start,” said Bucky, moving towards the exit after Alicia.

“Steve,” he found himself saying.

Bucky paused and looked back at him. “What?”

“You never call me Steve,” he said. “Just Rogers.”

Bucky’s lips twisted. “Huh. You’re right. Sorry, force of habit.”

Steve didn’t regret trying to get Nat back, but he was starting to really, really regret going in there half-cocked with a half-baked plan that cost him over a century of his life.

He’d never make up for this mistake.

Bucky led him across the bridge (which creaked and swayed underneath his feet. Though Bucky strode confidently across, Steve was a bit more leery) and onto the main island.

“That’s our power plant,” Bucky said, pointing to the main building. “Powers the repulsors, keeps us up in the air. Solar and wind give us lights, pumps water, whole nine yards.”

“And the repulsors?” Steve asked.

Bucky hesitated a fraction of a second. “Tesseract power.”

“Tesseract power,” said Steve flatly, and Bucky shrugged.

“Solar and wind won’t keep us in the air, Steve. And it’s not like HYDRA’s still around.”

“Wouldn’t bet on it,” Steve muttered to himself, and Bucky cracked a grin.

“Yeah, they’re little disgusting cockroaches, huh? Anyway, Bruce’s labs are also in there and everyone else lives in the huts.”

Steve looked at the houses. There were thirty or so all clustered together like a village. There was even a playground; a two-person swing set, a seesaw, and monkey bars. It seemed like someone had tried to build a slide, but Steve wouldn’t have trusted his butt on the reddish, slightly flakey metal they’d used.

There were a few people out and about. They all looked like enormously tall professional bodybuilders, except for a few teenagers Steve saw here and there, who seemed normally proportioned. There didn’t seem to be any children younger than age thirteen. Maybe, though, they were just inside. For some reason. Still, everyone gave them space and, aside from a few nods and friendly greetings offered to Bucky, which he returned, nobody paid them any mind.

One by one, Bucky took him through the different islands for the next hour and a half. The garden was filled with plants and produce of all types, including raspberry bushes, a couple of apples trees, a few pear trees, and rows upon rows of tomato vines. There were even some plants used to make teas and herbal infusions. And Bucky _kept_ throwing out plant names—squash, carrots, oregano, onions—and Steve tried to keep up, but there was just so _much._

“In the winter we take green house panels and build it around most of the produce,” Bucky told him as they completed a circuit around several rows of corn. He gestured to the line of concrete surrounding the entire island, which had thin slits down the middle where panes of glass might fit. “We keep many plants growing year-round.”

“What about the plants on the ground?” Steve asked. “It looks so … dead, down there.”

“The Plagued eat anything,” Bucky said darkly. “I think oxygen’s something we’ll have to worry about, in a couple of decades.” He was silent for a moment, then said with forced cheer, “Over here, Steve, come see the goats.”

The island were the livestock lived held only a few species. There were no cattle or pigs—“Take up more land than we have,” Bucky admitted. “And too much water.”—but they had chickens, goats, a small herd of sheep, turkeys, honey bees, and, strangely enough, rabbits.

“Good meat, good fur,” was all Bucky said, and Steve stopped asking after that. He’d always been a city boy, like Bucky, but Bucky had always been the more adaptable of the two of them. Steve wasn’t surprised in the slightest that Bucky had adapted so well to living in the post-apocalyptic landscape he’d found himself in.

Several of the goats and sheep demanded attention, which Bucky lavishly gave, cooing at the animals and petting them happily. Steve watched it with a wistful smile and tried not to flinch whenever a curious Bovidae came up to him. He recalled too vividly a couple of occasions in Wakanda where the goats would eat at his clothes and, on one memorable occasion, his entire left shoe.

Really, what Steve wanted to do was find someplace to sit and rest his calf. The crutch helped, but his leg hurt something terrible. Still, he wasn’t about to say anything to Bucky. He’d power through the pain, so long as he kept getting to talk to Bucky.

When they finally left the animals behind, Steve was surprised when Bucky didn’t take them towards the last island, but towards the main island.

“We’re not going there?” he asked, confused.

“That island’s not as cool,” said Bucky, gesturing to the island with the warehouse. “It’s where we store our water tanks to be purified, our winter stores of food, our drying meat, all that.”

It didn’t sound interesting in the slightest, but Steve was desperate to spend time with Bucky, so he said, “Sounds fun.”

Bucky gave him A Look. “Uh-huh.”

“It _does,”_ Steve insisted.

“Sure,” said Bucky, eyes flickering down to Steve’s leg. “Well, it isn’t interesting to _me,_ so let’s…”

When Bucky didn’t finished his sentence, Steve glanced over at Bucky and saw that he was looking over at the main island. He followed Bucky’s gaze and saw Piper leaving the large building and heading for one of the huts at a strangely slow, shuffling pace.

“Tour’s over,” said Bucky abruptly. “Let’s go see Bruce.”


	7. Shown in the Shaking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter isn't as proof-read as I wanted, but hey, it's here. I might comb through it later. Enjoy!

Steve trailed along behind Bucky, feeling a bit bewildered. In large part, this was due to the sheer fact of his situation—no matter how often it happened to him, Steve didn’t think he’d ever get used to skipping large swaths of time—and another, slightly smaller part, that _knew_ Bucky and knew there was a lot Bucky wasn’t telling Steve.

Granted, Bucky had moments in the past where he hadn’t been entirely truthful to Steve. He remembered back when he was fifteen and Bucky sixteen, how for a month, Bucky had avoided him like Steve had had the plague (which he hadn’t at that time) and how he wouldn’t meet Steve’s eyes and how he looked like he’d wanted to bolt every time he was in the same room as Steve. Steve had thought for sure that Bucky had finally decided he didn’t want to be Steve’s friend anymore, that he’d finally cottoned onto why everyone else avoided him, but then Bucky had come back, smiling and joking and hell bent on double dates, for whatever reason.

He never told Steve what was up, no matter how hard Steve had pressed. And that wasn’t the end of it—extra hours at the docks, only when Steve had tried to be there once or twice to walk with Bucky home, Bucky hadn’t been there. He never told Steve where he went. All throughout the war, Bucky had never opened up to Steve, kept quiet about the pain he was in. After the Winter Soldier, in Wakanda, even then Bucky wouldn’t tell Steve all of what was going on in his head.

And that was fine; they weren’t the same person, they could have their secrets. The Lord knew that Steve kept _plenty_ from Bucky, like the time he once stole Bucky’s favorite mitt and then accidentally stained it with oil (Bucky had thought it was Jamey Mitchell, a friend of his at the time, and Steve hadn’t corrected him, so sure his new friend would ditch him) to the much larger fact that Steve was madly, in love with him.

It also wasn’t like Bucky didn’t have his reasons for mistrusting Steve—it probably wasn’t easy coming to terms with the fact that the fate of his best friend had been a lie for over a century—and Steve hadn’t done his best to reassure Bucky that he was coming back from his mission with the Stones (mostly because he’d thought he’d be trading his life for Nat’s), so Bucky naturally had no way to knowing Steve hadn’t done what that old man had done…

Except.

Except, Steve _wouldn’t_ do something like that. Steal another person’s life. Live in the past. Abandon his friends, his _family._

And it hurt, that the only person who’d seemed convinced that he hadn’t done that was someone he’d never met, but who had then died before exposing the truth.

Bucky led him into the power plant, pushing open the doors and leading Steve down the hallways, confident with his turnings, his stride easy.

Steve stared around him as they went. Most of the doors were closed, but he saw flickers of life, here and there. A child’s drawing tacked up outside of what had to be an office room, a few flecks of paint dribbled into a trail which broke off from their hallway and down another, someone humming a tune Steve didn’t know behind another door.

Mostly, the power plant looked exactly like most power plants. Concrete walls and floors, doors and hallways branching off here and there, and the constant, incessant hum of electricity surrounding them.

Bucky led him through a door where some child had doodled various scenery and people in paint. The images were faded, very faded, and Steve wondered how grown up the child was.

Inside was a massive room, easily half the length of the power plant itself, and filled with various machines Steve couldn’t even begin to know the uses of. A massive desk, covered in papers and blueprints and various half-filled cups of tea stood nearby. In the center was a machine that looked a great deal like one of Tony’s larger arc reactors, filled with blue crackling light. Hunched over some controls at its base was Bruce in a lab coat.

“Rising steadily,” said Bruce said. “Nearing optimal altitude soon.”

“Great,” said Bucky. “Bruce, here’s Steve.”

Bruce froze for a moment, then whirled around, eyes wide.

“Bruce,” said Steve, stepping forward and holding out his hand.

Bruce looked _old,_ even older than Bucky, though Steve knew he was younger by several decades. White-haired and heavily lined, Steve thought, due to stress, but looking as rumpled and unassuming as ever. He blinked at Steve, his eyes flicking down to the shield on Steve’s arm and then back up, and said, “You know, Piper told me they’d found you, but…”

“Yeah,” said Steve. “I’m … I’m really sorry about all of it. I just thought … Well. I thought I could, maybe, get Nat back…”

Bruce blinked rapidly, then let out a rather watery chuckle. “That does sound a bit more like you.” He finally reached out and took Steve’s hand, shaking it slightly before dropping it again. “Now, what’s going on?”

So Steve explained his story yet again, finishing up with meeting Bucky and Piper and Nat’s ghostly appearance.

“The Soul Stone,” Bruce murmured. He shot a glance at Bucky. “Think Addison’s behind all that?”

“Probably,” said Bucky. “Natasha mentioned her.”

“Back in the, uh…” Steve trailed off.

“The Soul Realm,” Bruce suggested.

“Sure,” said Steve. “I know she used to be an Avenger, but what’s she got to do with the Soul Stone?”

Bucky and Bruce exchanged looks, then Bucky sighed. “Before Thanos snapped that first time in 2018, the Soul Stone merged its power with Addison and anchored the Soul Realm to her.”

Steve frowned. “The what now?”

“It’s where all the vanished went,” said Bruce.

Steve looked at Bucky, who shrugged. “No, I don’t remember it.”

“Oh,” said Steve. “So…”

“So Addison had powers,” said Bucky. “I mean, the weight of the Realm put her in a coma for those five years, but after you guys reversed the Snap? After everything? She woke up. She could see people’s souls, in a way. Manipulate them. She could see what kind of person they were, if they were trustworthy, their wants and needs, even. She had this … string gimmick, too. She could wrap orange strings around people, fling ‘em about easy but also freeze them in place, tap into their emotions, track people down just by reading their soul energy in places they had been, whole nine yards.”

She sounded like someone Steve was glad to have on their side.

“She was wonderful,” Bucky said, and there was something in his voice—like when Becca had sent news that she was engaged. Bucky had felt like he’d lost her, in some way. He sounded like that with Addison—an older brother who’d lost his much-loved younger sister.

“I’m sorry, Buck,” he said quietly.

Bucky sighed, heavy this time. He looked very old and very sad. And why shouldn’t he? He’d seen every single person he loved die, or had outlived them. He had lived through three centuries with nothing the pain and sorrow and death as his constant companions. The oldest person alive would always be someone seeped in sorrow and pain, tangled in what-ifs and what-might-have-beens, their old heart crushed with time ad grief.

Bruce cleared his throat. “Why now?”

Steve looked at him. “What?”

“Why send you back?” Bruce asked. “Why send you back _now?”_

Steve shrugged, feeling a bit helpless. “I don’t know. They just told me to get to New York, to the old Compound.”

Bruce frowned. “But why go there?”

“Because there’s something there,” said Bucky. He shrugged when they looked at him. “What? It makes sense. It’s not like we’ve lived there for over a hundred years. Anything could have found its way there.”

“I completely understand if no one you can spare the time or desire to go out there,” Steve said. “I can do it.”

Bucky glared at him, hard. “Shut the hell up, Rogers, I’m coming with.”

Steve let out a breath and said, “Yeah?”

Bucky rolled his eyes. _“Yeah,_ of course.”

Bruce sighed. “Well, you won’t be able to leave right away. The rover isn’t up to snuff for such a long distance drive.”

“I got that,” said Bucky easily. “Give me … two weeks.”

Bruce nodded, tapping a finger on his thigh. “Food provisions, water, we’ll need a little extra juice for the repulsion engines…”

“Two weeks, three at most,” Bucky said, giving Bruce a reassuring smile. “It’ll be fine, Bruce.”

Bruce sighed, then looked at Steve. “I don’t know what’s out in New York, Steve, but whatever it is … I hope it helps.”

“I hope so, too,” said Steve, swaying slightly.

Bucky clapped a hand on Steve’s shoulder. “We’ll come back tomorrow, Bruce. I think we’re beat for now.”

“I’m fine,” Steve said, and Bucky gave him a _deeply_ unimpressed look.

“Fine, fine,” said Bruce, waving hem off. “We need to think about additional long-term energy storage…” Bruce’s voice trailed off, and the scientist was already hunched over the paper-strewn desk, muttering to himself and making calculations.

“C’mon,” said Bucky. “Let’s leave him to it, check back in tomorrow. For now, let’s find you a bed and some food, alright?”

“I—yeah,” said Steve, only just now realizing how tired and hungry he really was. “Sounds great.”

Bucky flashed him a tight smile and said, “Cool. This way.”


	8. My Indelible Friend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of a long one today! Hooray!
> 
> Warnings: some mild descriptions of Steve's wound. It's just a paragraph. If you wanna skip that, feel free to stop reading at “It’s not much…” and pick up again at "Just as he was finishing".

Steve lay in his bed several hours later, head and calf aching, staring up at the ceiling. He was sleeping on a cot in the middle of Bucky and Piper’s hut. Piper’s door was firmly closed and had been since Bucky had brought Steve here with no movement on the other side.

Bucky and Piper’s house was just large enough for two people. There were two (small, if Steve’s glimpse of Bucky’s room was any indication) bedrooms and a main room that served as both living room and kitchen. There was no bathroom—but Steve had spied a chamber pot underneath Bucky’s bed which was … well, indicative of what the world had come to.

There were some decorations, but not very many. A few sketches—some from kids, others from hands Steve didn’t know, and even a couple of Bucky’s scratchy doodles. There was a small Star Wars cup filled with wilting dandelions on the window sill and a couple of trinkets on a table beneath the window. Steve spotted several strangely shaped or colored rocks, a small wicker basket filled with shells, and even—Steve squinted—what looked like a Lego figurine of Captain America. Of _him._

The thought of Bucky finding and keeping a little toy of him, even after the Old Man, even after Steve had abandoned him with little to no warning, was staggering.

After first bringing Steve into his home, Bucky had started throwing together a salad while Steve set his shield down against the wall and looked around. Bucky didn’t seem to mind Steve going through his things, but Steve didn’t want to point out the Lego figure. It seemed … rude to mention it, in a way.

He had, however, nearly fallen into one of the hand-crafted chairs, taking weight off his leg for the first time in over an hour. He’d tried not to let his pain show, but from the frown tugging at Bucky’s lips as he assembled their meal, he hadn’t succeeded.

“Here,” Bucky told him, abandoning chopping something (a fruit, Steve thought), and grabbing a 

small first aid kit. “It’s not much…”

“It’ll be fine,” Steve assured him, unwrapping the field bandage and taking a look at the wound.

It was already healing, but it was a nasty gash, red and stark. The old bandage was splattered with blood, but Steve couldn’t see any hint of an infection. He bit his lip and set about cleaning it and rebandaging it.

Just as he was finishing, Bucky cleared his throat. “All good, Steve?”

“Yeah,” Steve said as he finished wrapping the new bandage. “It’ll be fine.”

“Mm-hmm,” Bucky said, bringing over two bowls. “Should probably keep your weight off of it. Hold on, I’ll get you a bowl of water and some soap.”

“Buck, I can walk,” Steve protested.

Bucky set the bowls down on the floor and regarded him for a moment. He then said, “I’ll take care of it. You clean up your shit.” He toed the used bandage.

Steve blinked, then grinned. “You got it.”

Once they’d taken care of everything, they set about eating, a silence which was mostly comfortable settling around the hut.

Steve had never had food quite like it, but his grumbling stomach didn’t much care about the fact that he was eating things like sheep meat and pear slices and goat cheese and cranberries in it and was surprisingly tasty, even without dressing. He chewed on potato flour bread rolls in silence and listened to Bucky tell him about life on the islands, from a few of the people to the various jobs around the place. A smile lingered on Bucky’s face every time he brought up the island’s kids and animals (especially the cats who apparently roamed about the islands), which acted as a balm on Steve’s heart.

Once they had finished eating, Bucky pulled out a cot from behind his bedroom door and set Steve up on it, pushing itchy woolen blankets and pillows encased in hemp pillowcases, and Steve was hit all over again by how _different_ this time was to the last two he’d lived through. From the Depression with food scarcity and civil unrest to a time where everything was in excess (at least, it was when Tony Stark was your ally) and surveillance was seen as a normal thing, to now … Well. Where it was the last of the human race trying to survive the actual apocalypse.

Steve had grown up Catholic. He’d gone to Mass, said his prayers, believed in God.

Then he’d lost Bucky.

After he said goodnight to Bucky and lay on his cot, sleep evaded Steve as he stared up at the dark ceiling.

He was alone in the room in an unwelcome future for the second time in his life. Steve couldn’t help but to begin to reflect that it was kind of hard to believe in a God who would let Bucky die before Steve, who would let his Ma die, who would send Steve careening through the future not once, but twice. And maybe for those first few years in the twenty-first century, Steve had continued believing, had said the occasional prayer (mostly for Bucky, for the Howlies, for Peggy), but then Bucky had reappeared, and Steve had seen what had been done to him, had seen seventy years worth of torture, and he had thought, _No._

_No God would do this. And if a God had? Then that’s not a God I want to put my faith in._

Still, as he lay in the darkness, he couldn’t help but wonder if God—had He ever existed—had abandoned the earth a long, long time ago. Had seen humanity and all that it would do, what it would become, and had gone to greener pastures.

It was a sobering thought, because Steve knew his Ma had believed, had believed with her whole heart, and Steve himself had believed for much of his life.

But how could he now, knowing this future? How could he truly believe in an all-loving God when _this_ was the outcome?

Sleep wouldn’t come. Steve’s thoughts spun and spun as his eyes tracked the path of moonlight across the floor. It was cold, but Steve’s enhanced body burned hot, and he tried to slow his thoughts, slow his mind, drift away, but he couldn’t.

His thoughts drifted from God, moved onto his Ma and his childhood (and Bucky), to the War and Peggy, the Howlies, Bucky, to the twenty-first century (and Bucky). Everything that had led up to this point, to this dying earth. Everything that had left Bucky a leader of the last of the human race.

There was … a lot to think about.

Steve was jerked out of his thoughts sometime around midnight when something creaked. He glanced over and said that Bucky’s door had opened and the shadowy figure of his friend slipped out of his room.

Bucky immediately caught sight of Steve, awake and alert.

“Can’t sleep?” he asked quietly.

“No,” Steve admitted. “My head’s spinning too fast.”

A soft snort escaped Bucky. “I know the feeling. Tea?”

“Sure,” Steve sighed, sitting up and swinging his legs over the side of the cot, planting them firmly on the ground. “You?”

“I go on missions to the ground so often I’m always hyper vigilant at night,” said Bucky wryly as he crossed over to the kitchen and pulled up a bang-up, well-used kettle. He filled it up, set it on the stove, and turned the knob on. “Makes it hard to sleep through the night, even when I’m up here.”

“I know the feeling,” said Steve. He watched Bucky for a few moments as Bucky pulled out two chipped mugs and scooped some tea into them.

“It’s loose-leaf,” he warned Steve.

Steve, who had never had loose-leaf tea before in his life, nodded and said with confidence, “No problem.”

As they waited for the water to boil, Bucky leaned against the wall and regarded Steve.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“Of what?”

“Anything. Everything.”

Steve considered. “I think it’s amazing, what you’ve done. You survived the Apocalypse, Buck. These islands? All the stuff your grow and make? It’s amazing.”

Bucky let out a dry laugh. “Yeah. Lot of it was learned as we went. Pip and me, we got as many books as we could on how to do things like make clothes not made of cotton, basic survival skills, how to grow food, all that. Everyone else had their own skill sets, you know? Everyone knows how to do something to help everyone else.”

“It’s amazing,” said Steve.

“It’s not enough.”

Steve tilted his head. “It’s … not?”

“We need to get off this planet,” Bucky admitted quietly. “You saw those Plagued back there in Las Vegas. They’re growing wings. Eventually, we aren’t going to be able to escape them. They can swim, they can run, fast, they’re learning to fly … Soon, there’s going to be nowhere left to go.”

What a chilling thought. Steve looked over at Bucky, who stared sightlessly up at the ceiling.

“So what are you planning?” Steve asked.

Bucky let out a shaky breath. “You know, back when the Plague first hit, we called those alien friends of yours for help. They came. They got infected.” He raised his left hand and pressed it against his eye socket, hard. “They died, just like everyone else. Guess that freaked whatever Federation is up there, and Earth was put under quarantine. There’s a shell ‘round this planet. Sunlight can get in, but not much else. Nothing in, nothing out. But we gotta get up there, Steve. We gotta break through the barrier. We can’t stay on this planet.”

“The Tesseract should be able to,” Steve pointed out, but Bucky shook his head.

“‘S not at full power,” he said. “Powering the islands takes up most of the energy we got from it. Powering our weapons and vehicles, that takes up the rest. ‘Cause here’s the real rub—we need the Tesseract to fuel the islands so we’re safe, but there’s not enough room up here to build the ship we need. It’ll take a few months to build the ship and for the remains of the Tesseract we do have to fully charge up again to power it. We can’t keep these islands floating and build our ticket out of here at the same time. It’s one or the other.”

“Oh,” said Steve.

Bucky ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah. Piper and me are collecting all of the parts Bruce needs—it’s why we were in Las Vegas. We also go out to scout places we could feasibly hole up for six to eleven months. We need to stockpile enough food to last us then, save up enough water, bring everything we want to bring, and even _then,_ we need to figure out exactly how we can slip through the barrier without shattering it completely, because I wouldn’t put it past the Plagued to learn how to survive space. And _then_ we need to find some habitable planet that’ll take us, and it’s not like we can send probes out to search for something because this planet is locked down.”

That was … That was a lot. A lot of unknowns. A lot of uncertainty. A lot of danger. It was overwhelming, nearly impossible. Steve’s head swam, but he was saved trying to answer by the kettle singing.

Bucky pushed off from the wall and began to pour the boiled water into the mugs.

“There’s another hang up,” Bucky admitted as he poured the water.

“What?” Steve asked, dreading any more complications.

“The children,” said Bucky as he stirred in some honey. “Bruce came up with his own version that worked and didn’t make more Hulks, but it really only works on teenagers and up. Bruce’s serum doesn’t pass on, genetically speaking. So no one’s had any children in the last ten or so years, ‘cause we’re hoping to move out soon. The problem is, again, the serum. Little Mikey, he’s our youngest survivor now. He’s twelve, just hitting puberty. If you give the serum to kids when they’re _kids,_ it wreaks havoc on their growth. Stunts ‘em, or makes ‘em grow too much too quickly. It’s fine once they’re well into puberty. Once Mikey’s ready, he’ll get the serum, then we’ll abandon the islands and head down there to wherever Piper and me find that’s safe. It’ll be a rough few months, but we’ll survive, and then we’ll get to the stars.”

“It’ll be fine, Buck,” said Steve quietly.

Bucky’s eyes snapped over to Steve’s and held them. “You sound so sure.”

“I am,” said Steve. “Bucky, you love these people. You care about them. That means you’re going to make sure they’re as safe as possible before you try anything.”

“It won’t be enough,” Bucky whispered.

“I know,” said Steve, because he _did._ “But all you can do is try.”

Bucky sighed and brought the mugs over, passing one to Steve and taking the other. Then he hesitated, so Steve said, “Have a seat, Buck. I don’t bite.”

Bucky huffed a laugh and sat next to Steve. “I remember a few times where that _wasn’t_ true.”

“What, that jerk McDougall? He deserved it.” Steve grinned at Bucky’s quiet laugh before staring down at his mug, which was filled with liquid and floating bits of dried leaves, and wondered how the hell he was supposed to drink the concoction.

He side eyed Bucky and saw that Bucky was sipping with his lips close to the rim, acting as a strainer for the leaves, and did his best to copy him.

The tea itself was sweet and warm, if slightly bitter, and a couple of the leaf bits slipped through into his mouth, but all in all it wasn’t … the worst. The taste was okay.

It would probably be better in tea bags, though.

“This is good,” he said.

“Yeah?” Bucky stretched out his legs a bit. “Marvin’s in charge of herbs and teas and stuff, and the purification of water. He’s real good at it.”

“Yeah, he is,” said Steve, and his sleep-stupid brain couldn’t think of anything else to say.

So they sat together, not saying a word, just drinking their tea in the dead of night and wondering what their futures held.

The next day, Steve woke up sprawled on the cot with Piper sitting two feet away, staring at him while eating a pear.

Steve said something that sounded like, “Guh-lah,” and sat upright, staring at her.

Piper took another bite and said thickly through pear chunks, “I don’t like you.”

“Um,” said Steve. “Okay.”

Piper looked terrible. If Steve didn’t know she had the serum, he’d had thought she’d pulled an all-nighter while sick. There were massive dark bruises under her eyes and her dark skin had a sickly pallor to it. Despite looking calm, her fingers trembled around the pear, almost like the weight of the fruit was too much for her. The Piper before him right now was such a stark contrast between the woman who’d helped Bucky take on a pack of Plagued yesterday that Steve blurted out, “Are you okay?”

“Hmm?” Piper blinked slowly. “Yes.”

“You don’t—” Steve cut himself off. “Sorry.”

“I look like shit, I know,” said Piper. “It happens. Moving on. I’ve been friends with Bucky for a long time and I don’t want to see him hurt because of your actions.”

“I know,” said Steve, feeling miserable and like the worst friend in the entire universe. Who promises someone they love ‘til the end of the line and then abandons them for a hundred and twenty years? Steve, that’s who. What an asshole.

“Good,” said Piper. “Because I’ll have you know that since I like him a hell of a lot more than I like you, I’m happy to stab you if you make him sad.”

“Oh,” said Steve. “Where?”

Piper cracked a smile, though she quickly smothered it. “Shoulder, probably.”

Steve nodded. “Yeah, that’s fair.”

While Piper took another bite of her pear, Steve glanced around. “Where _is_ Bucky?”

“Talking to Alicia,” said Piper, unconcerned. “They’re kinda the ones in charge of running the place.”

“Oh,” said Steve. “I—yeah, okay.”

“Also, I hope you know I’m absolutely not letting Bucky and you go off to New York alone,” Piper told him. “I’m very much coming with.”

“That’s fine,” said Steve as his stomach gurgled.

Piper snickered. “Fruit’s in the kitchen, help yourself.”

“Thanks,” said Steve. “I’m sorry for just coming in and eating your food.”

Piper shrugged. “C’est la vie.”

Steve got to his feet and headed for the kitchen, finding a bowl full of apples and pears lying on one of the cramped counters. While he selected two or three, he glanced thoughtfully at Piper. Despite her vocal (and understandable) dislike of him, she clearly meant a lot to Bucky, who treated her like his little sister.

So while Piper might not like him, Steve wanted to get into her good graces. He wanted to get to know her, to understand why Bucky loved her, and to maybe (hopefully) come to care about her as well. Because whoever was important to Buck, Steve wanted them to be important to him, too.

He took his breakfast back with him and sat on the floor in front of the cot so that he and Piper were facing one another.

“Hi,” said Steve, giving her a small smile, which she didn’t return.

“Cool,” she said. “So, ground rules of the islands. Don’t run into the wind blades. Only the terminally moronic do that. Don’t mess with the solar panels unless your name is Bruce or Yanna. Don’t mess with the power plant unless your name is Bruce. Also, don’t jump off the edge of the island. It’s a long way down.”

“Common sense,” said Steve, nodding.

“I’ve been led to believe you have none,” Piper informed him.

Steve choked. “Hey!”

Piper grinned, bright and mischievous, for just a moment while Steve cleared his throat and tried not to laugh himself. It made her look younger, and Steve could just imagine Bucky complaining to Piper about all the misadventures Steve had gotten them mixed up in as a kid and in the war.

“Yeah, he talked about you sometime,” Piper said, looking him up and down. Something softened in his eyes. “You mean a lot to him, you know.”

“I do,” Steve replied. “Just like … he means a lot to me.”

Piper nodded, and they ate in silence for a few moments. Piper finished her pear while Steve ploughed his way through two apples.

Then Steve asked, “Is he okay?”

Piper shrugged. It seemed that a lot of her energy had left her.

“It’s the end of the world, Rogers,” she said wearily. “Humanity is now all but extinct, gone the way of the dinosaurs. Despite all that, he’s still here, so I’d say he’s doing as well as he can.”

“Can’t expect anything else,” Steve said quietly.

Piper’s head began to droop, but she snapped it up again with some effort and said, “We haven’t had anyone come into this community that wasn’t already here since Richard about eight decades ago, so. You’re gonna need some stuff.”

“Where can I get this stuff?” Steve asked.

“Go find Darla,” Piper ordered him. “She’ll find you some new clothes and a washcloth to wipe yourself down with and all the other necessities you need.”

“Sounds like a plan,” said Steve.

Piper rolled her eyes. “Believe it or not, Man with Some Sort of Plan, you don’t got the monopoly on ‘em.”

Steve clapped a hand to his chest and said with as much wounded indignation as he could muster, “You’re wrecking my self-esteem.”

Piper cracked a smile, then glared at him. “Stop being sassy. I hate you.”

Steve bobbed his head. “Sure thing. From now on, I’ll only talk about … uh, apple pie, American Dream, trucks, and…” He paused, struggling, then finished with, “Suburban lawn mowers?”

Piper stared at him. _“Lawn mowers?”_

Steve threw up his hands, flashing. “I don’t know! How many other countries used to take pride in riding along on lawn mowers?”

“I have no idea,” Piper said, hiding a smile. “Go find Darla, get outta my sight, you American menace.”

Steve smiled, waved goodbye, and scooted out the door. Before he closed it behind him, he saw Piper stagger into her room, looking for all the world like she carried the weight of the planet on her back.


	9. Though Crazy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Midterms are kicking my butt ahhhh sorry, this isn't my best chapter but it's what I got

After checking on his wound—which seemed to be healing up nicely, so Steve cleaned it, bandaged it anew, and called it good—he set off to find Darla. Thankfully, she wasn’t particularly hard to find, like Steve had feared, since she also seemed in charge of wrangling the teenagers, which one survivor, Viktora, told him when he stopped her to ask.

Darla was a stout woman of about five foot, five inches. She looked as much a bodybuilder as everyone else, but she seemed like the kind of woman who would be plump and warm without the serum. Her blonde, sun-bleached hair was pulled back into a small bun and her dark eyes snapped over the four teens in front of her with all the severity of a drill sargent.

Which seemed exactly how she was addressing the kids.

“What’s the best way to treat an infected wound?” she barked.

One of the teens, a girl about seventeen, shot her hand into the air.

“Yes, Micha?” Darla said.

“Warm compress against the wound for thirty minutes at a time at least four times a day,” she said. “Drain it, dress it, continue the treatment until all signs of infection are gone. Drink lots of water.”

“Good,” Darla said crisply. “Which stitches do you use to sew clothes? Yes, Ramόn?”

And so on and so forth. Steve, not wishing to interrupt the review lesson, stayed and watched as Darla quizzed Micha, Ramόn, Darius, and Michael on everything from the proper way to wield a machete (which a practical demonstration) to the best way to grow mint. It was like a crash course guide on surviving out in the wilderness which, basically, was what these kids were doing.

Steve wondered if any of them had ever been on solid ground before. If any of them had seen what the planet their ancestors had lived on looked like now, up close.

He clenched his fists and looked down, guilt and a slow, simmering anger building up in his gut.

_He hadn’t been there. He wasn’t there when the world died._

And it was _all his fault._

He had just … He’d just wanted Nat back. He’d just wanted her alive and able to see what all her hard work had brought about. He’d just wanted her to be _happy,_ so that she could finally _rest._

But now there would be no rest. Now, there was nothing but dust and alien viruses and humanity barely clinging on to what safety they could find.

Darla’s review lasted twenty more minutes. By the time it ended, Steve felt that he’d learned quite a bit, and was quite glad he hadn’t derailed the lesson.

As the teenagers left the grassy area, he could see them all shooting looks at him. Steve wondered why until he realized that they had probably never had to meet someone they hadn’t known from birth.

Darla marched up to him and looked him up and down. “You Steve?”

Steve straightened. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Harumph.” She nodded curtly. “Bucky told me you’d need to come see me. Come.”

She spun around and marched away, leaving Steve to stride on after her. Despite the fact that they both had the serum, Steve’s legs were still longer, so it wasn’t too hard to keep up with her, but Steve still remained a respectful half-step behind.

Darla led him onto the warehouse island, where she pushed open a door and led him inside.

This space looked far more like an office than anything else, and there was a small box on a desk, which Darla beelined for.

“Alicia had me put this together last night,” Darla grunted. “Here.”

She shoved the box at him, and Steve took it, looking inside.

There were three strange looking toothbrushes which seemed made of wood and some kind of plant fiber, a woolen washcloth, an extra pair of clothes, a bar of lye soap, and a wooden comb.

“This looks great,” he said.

“Good,” said Darla. “Now, _sit down.”_

Steve sat.

For the next fifteen minutes, he was blasted with all of Darla’s rules (of which there were many) and what she expected his behavior to be. It felt rather like being faced with a nun again, though thankfully Darla didn’t bring out a ruler. It was one of the more thorough dressing-downs Steve had ever experienced, and he couldn't wait to get out of there.

By the time Steve escaped, box clutched to his chest like a shield, he found Bucky lounging outside, face tilted up to the sun.

“So you survived Darla,” said Bucky wryly without opening his eyes.

“I feel like I’ve been hit with a truck,” said Steve blankly. _“Again.”_

“When did a truck hit you the first time?” Bucky asked, nettled, eyes snapping open.

“During one of the raids on HYDRA, back in 2015, I think,” said Steve.

Bucky nodded before he rolled onto his feet smoothly. As they fell in step together, heading back over the bridge towards Bucky and Piper’s house, Bucky muttered, “Makes sense.”

“How’d your meeting with Alicia go?” Steve asked.

Bucky stared at him, surprised, and said, “Fine, just had to look over one of the glitchy turbines.”

“Is Piper okay?” Steve blurted out.

Bucky tilted his head just slightly. “Sure. Why do you ask?”

“She’s…” Steve frowned. “I think there’s something wrong with her. She looks sick, Buck.”

Bucky stared at him, expression going a bit blank. “Hmm. I’ll check in on her.”

“Should I be worried about her?” Steve asked.

Bucky shook his head. “Nah, she’ll be fine. The problem is that all our serums are different. Sure, most of the people here have Bruce’s good serum, but people like Pip and me, was all have different serums with different side effects. I’m sure Piper’s fine.”

“Okay,” said Steve, unconvinced.

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Steve. _Relax._ She’s made it this long, I’m sure she’s not going to croak soon. How about you find a place to store those, like under your cot, and I’ll check in on her. Then you and me can go take a look at the rover, see what needs to be done to make this cross-country journey.”

“Sure, Buck,” said Steve. “Sounds good.”

Bucky clapped him on the shoulder, then pushed into his house, Steve tailing along behind him.

Two days later, Bucky and Piper went out on a water run.

Steve did not get to go with.

Not for lacking of trying, of course.

_“Buck,”_ he’d said as Bucky was packing up the rover. “Please, let me come with.”

“No,” Bucky had replied calmly.

“Why not?” Steve pressed.

Bucky paused and looked Steve in the eye.

“Firstly,” he said. “Because you’ve been here all of three days. You don’t know how to use our weapons, you don’t know our signals and commands, and I’m not keen on teaching you on the fly _when I don’t have to._ Secondly, because the last thing I need is for you to do something stupidly heroic and get yourself killed because you don’t know this world.”

“I can learn,” Steve said lowly. “I’ve done it before.”

“And I’m not doubting you can do it again,” Bucky said. He settled a hand on Steve’s shoulders. “I’m not saying that, pal. What I _am_ saying, is that this? This is a milk run. This is something Pip and me have done _thousands_ of times before. You don’t gotta worry.”

Steve searched Bucky’s expression for indication that Bucky was lying, but he couldn’t read Bucky as clearly as he used to be able to; time and age and changed Bucky just enough that it was like reading a half-finished book.

“‘Sides,” Bucky added. “I’d also rather your calf was one hundred percent better.”

“It is,” Steve immediately protested. It wasn’t, actually, but Steve only felt a twinge now when he pushed himself too hard.

“Right,” said Bucky, giving him an old, familiar look at expressed something along the lines of, _You’re full of shit, Rogers._ “Still, these things are fast. You’re at your 100%, or you’re not coming with. Trust me, Steve. We’ll be fine.”

“Okay,” he said at last, reluctantly.

Bucky’s eyes searched his for a moment before Bucky nodded.

“Great,” he said. “We’ll be back tonight, Steve. Promise.”

Steve nodded and stepped back, letting Bucky climb into the rover, putting his mask and goggles on. Piper, who was looking better, more healthy, slipped on her mask and goggles and settled into the other seat.

“See you in a couple hours,” Bucky called as he started the rover up, guiding it into the air and out of the shed, off into the open sky.

Steve watched them go, a heavy lump in his stomach, until they were a distant dot. Then Steve turned on his heel and stalked across the bridge, intent on finding someone who would be willing to help him learn how to fire the Tesseract weapons.

No way was he going to be left behind, not again.

The day after Bucky and Piper returned from their water run, Piper returned to the hut looking as drained and gaunt as she had a few days prior.

Steve watched her stagger into her room and knew.

Something was up.

He stood up once the door closed behind her, setting his shoulders, lips twisted into a serious frown.

Steve and Bucky needed to have a talk.


	10. The Breaking of Glass

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyyyyy I'm not dead! I just died from midterms for a bit there. They're (mostly) over now, so I'm feeling a bit more chill.
> 
> So, again, fairly short chapter--I'm going to try to make the next one longer, promise, but I really wanted to get something out. Hope you enjoy!

He didn’t actually need to go far to find Bucky; his old friend was already making his way towards the house for lunch.

So Steve waited for him inside, sitting on his cot, which he’d pushed to one side the room a few days ago so he wasn’t taking up the entire center of the room.

When Bucky entered the house, Steve knew that Bucky knew something was up. He could tell in the way Bucky assessed the atmosphere, the way his eyes darted over to Steve before affecting a nonchalant gait as he headed for the kitchen.

“Steve,” said Bucky, glancing over at him.

“Bucky,” Steve returned.

He watched Bucky as he fixed himself a sandwich in the kitchen. The silence was stifling and wrought with tension, but Steve didn’t care to break it first. He could have patience, when it was a fight. He could wait.

“Well,” said Bucky as he finished up. He sounded resigned. “What do you want to talk about now, Steve?”

“Piper,” said Steve. “I want to know what’s going on with her.”

Bucky leaned against the counter, his gaze steadily meeting Steve’s. “What makes you think something’s going on with her?”

“Cut the crap,” Steve snapped. “It’s obvious, Barnes. She has the serum, she shouldn’t be getting sick like this. You’re keeping something from me.”

Bucky met his gaze without flinching. “Yeah, I am. Because you know what, Steve? I’ve got most of what remains of humanity to look out for, which I’ve been doing for decades. I got a lot of shit that I need to do, even worse shit that I _have_ done, and I don’t fucking need you preaching at me.” 

“You think I’d preach at you for surviving?” Steve demanded, getting to his feet angrily.

Bucky met his gaze head-on. “Gee, I don’t know, Steve. It’s not like I _know_ you anymore, do I?”

Steve reeled back, staring at Bucky, stunned.

“What Piper is doing is none of your fucking business,” Bucky pressed.

“Just tell him, Bucky,” said Piper’s exhausted voice.

Steve glanced over his shoulder to see her slumped against her door frame, her skin ashy with the slightest sheen of sweat across her face, like she was fighting off the flu.

Bucky pressed his lips together, gazing at her. She returned his gaze head-on, resolute.

Finally, Bucky sighed. “We don’t have the Tesseract,” he said.

Steve blinked at this apparent non-sequitur. “What?”

“We don’t have the Tesseract,” Piper echoed. “We’ve got me.”

“I don’t understand,” said Steve.

Piper staggered forward, collapsing at the end of Steve’s bed, her limbs flopping every which way, like they were lead and Piper didn’t have the energy to move them.

“When I was twenty-two,” she said, “I absorbed energy from the Tesseract while I was on vacation in Washington D.C. to visit my aunt.”

Steve blinked. “I … didn’t know that was possible?”

Piper’s smile was thin and taught. “Just when you thought things couldn’t get weirder, huh?”

Steve snorted softly, and remained silent as he listened to Piper as she told him about how she never made it to her aunt’s house, instead getting blasted with the Infinity Stone’s power and kidnapped by HYDRA. She detailed how the power tore her body apart each time she’d used it until finally HYDRA injected her with serum in the hopes it would stabilize her body. About how they molded her into a weapon, how she’d learned to harness and control it. How Bucky had trained her to fight for a few months, enough for her to know he was as much as prisoner as she was. How she’d fought back against HYDRA as much as possible until they finally put her in the Chair a couple of times and she’d forgotten to fight them at all.

“During the Battle of New York,” she said. “When the Tesseract was active, it activated its own power in me. I was transported away from the cell I was in into a … pocket dimension, I guess.”

She looked down at her fingers, tangled together.

“It wasn’t pleasant,” she said hoarsely.

And there she’d stayed for ten years, though it had only felt like a few months for her, until she finally made it out and had begun to recover. She’d found Addison as a couple agencies (both legitimate or otherwise) were closing in on Addison, who was in a coma at the time, and had gotten her out to safety. She’d spent two years recovering from everything, spent that time taking care of Addison, until the Reverse Snap. Addison had woken up, and together they had tracked Bucky down. The two of them had joined the Avengers and fought for humanity for years. Then Addison died. Then Sam. Then Wanda. And she and Bucky had watched humanity die.

“The energy inside me renews itself,” she said. “And we need to power these islands. Bruce periodically drains me. It’s…” She sighed. “It’s hard on my body. The serum in me is fine-tuned to balance out my healing and the power that tears me apart, so when that balance it thrown off, it’s…” She looked down at her hands. “Not fun,” she finished.

“Piper,” Bucky said quietly.

She struggled to her feet with a groan. “So stop chewing Bucky out, Rogers. This isn’t his fault, it _really_ wasn’t his idea, and believe it or not, I’m an actual adult. I’m a hundred and sixty-three years old, so don’t you dare go policing my choices.”

Bucky’s lips quirked upwards, and Steve said softly, “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Good.” The smile Piper leveled at Steve was marginally friendlier than before. “Now, I’m going to hell to bed. Argue quieter.”

With that, she headed back into her room.

After her door shut again, Steve met Bucky’s eyes.

“I’m not going to judge you,” he said quietly.

“Good.” Bucky’s voice was hard.

Because, Steve realized, he liked the situation about as much as Steve did. Piper was, in essence, his younger sister, and Bucky had to watch her grow sickly time and time again.

For _decades._

If there was one thing about Bucky that Steve was sure had survived his time at HYDRA, it was how protective he was of his loved ones. _Especially_ his sisters.

This had to be killing Bucky, to watch Piper drained and weary.

“Buck,” he said.

“Just _don’t,_ Rogers,” said Bucky, striding out the door.

Steve debated not following him, but who was he kidding? Steve couldn’t let this lie.

He followed Bucky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, yeah. That's what's been up with Piper lol. The plot to go to New York will start soon! Also, I'm definitely going to try to get more chapters out soon, before TFatWS (whose excited?!), so stay tuned!
> 
> Thanks for reading, and I hope this upcoming week is wonderful for you, lovely reader :)

**Author's Note:**

> All of the chapter titles in this story are lyrics from Hozier's [Wasteland, Baby!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4rKN_qW5DU), which, fun fact, was the first song on my playlist for this story.
> 
> I have no idea how often I'm going to update this story, but assume a couple of times a week? Two or three? Who knows, not me. It's all written already, though, so it'll depend more on midterms and workload and such.


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